Mom was nominally Catholic and dad was nominally Baptist. I remember once when I was 3 or 4, mom telling me Jesus was not like Santa, and did I know this. I said I did, but all I seemed to be acknowledging was that both were real and Jesus was more special somehow (this is what I thought she meant). At 7 or 8, I did an "investigation" of Santa because there were just too many inconsistencies...and found all my "Santa" presents in their bedroom closet. I cried and cried, and dad said, "Just tell him those are for his cousins," which insulted my intelligence so blatantly that I cried some more. (Mom yelled back, "We already gave them their presents!"...and the presents I found said "From Santa to" me.)
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My great grandpa tried to get me to go to church with him quite often, but it was just too weird and made me uncomfortable. (His church was featured on the HBO doc "Questioning Darwin" where the minister said something like, "The Darwinists say we come from monkeys, so are they saying god is a monkey?" Sadly, this brief claim to fame seems to be the only time our tiny, tiny town has made it into any movie, tv show, etc.)
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Shortly after that, I asked a neighbor kid to have a sleep over, and his parents said ok if I went to church the next morning. Sure, I said. So I started going to Sunday school. I started with the assumption that it was true, or that there must have been something about it that SEEMED true, at least. But nothing did. The Sunday school teacher had green hair and an earring, and worked and 7-11. Even then, though, I thought, well that doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about. Then we had class, and it was so obvious he had no idea what he was talking about. The "students" cared more about donuts and hot chocolate than any lessons. I remember the classes were in a old single wide mobile home behind the church. The more "fire and brimstone" leader of the Sunday school said it was still "god's house" and we had to act accordingly. I was the most well behaved child I could imagine, even before Sunday school, and most of these kids I could plainly see were not, even while IN Sunday school and "God's house"...which was a second hand mobile home for some reason.
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I mostly labeled myself agnostic after that, until my junior year of college. I posted this on another thread also, but suffice it to say, we were reading parts of the bible for a great books class. A Calvinist professor acted as a sounding board for my questions. I was trying to make sense of the mythology in terms of internal consistency. The idea of an absolutely evil Satan never made sense to me, as 1) an absolutely good god was supposedly the first cause of Satan, and 2) if evil is disease, destruction, chaos, etc, a being that exemplifies all those things perfectly and absolutely would have to be absolutely diseased, destroyed, etc. The Calvinist professor agreed Satan was absolutely evil AND agreed that evil was disease, destruction, etc, but also said one being could be absolutely evil and that being was Satan (he gave no reason for why only one being or why Satan). I then said that an absolutely good god and an absolutely evil Satan (however you define those two things) would have to be in a stalemate forever. He said yes, except for at the end of time when god throws Satan in a lake of fire. That was when I became an atheist. I felt a click inside, and a realization that this made no sense at all, internally or externally. It was just a series of things with no logical connection to each other that some people believed for reasons I didn't really understand...and I suspected for reasons they didn't understand either.

Up until I was 12 I went to church regularly. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had a crush on my best friend's brother who was an atheist. My father told me I didn't have to go to church if I didn't want to. My crush won and that was when it started.

My mom was very religious, while my dad couldn't care less. I never had any theological talks with my dad. But I wondered about my mom, as it seemed there were all these rules for women that the men didn't have...hmmm
Then I was enrolled in a private, christian school, assembly of god, for 8.years. I suspected it was all bs after the first year. The more I was able to read the science and history books the more confident I became in my skepticism of anything religious. It just seemed to be a natural progression as I grew up. I never got any grief for my dissension...though I wasn't too vocal about it. You know...vibes....
Anyway, welcome to our little slice of reality!

I was never deep in religion and always preferred science over religion but still believed in god and went to church not every time but maybe I would say 4 times a month. After the Sandy Hook school shooting I begun to walk away from church, and only went there for the food. When trump was picked to be the gop guy I just stopped altogether. But when nazis marched on Charlottesville I woke up. Over the next few months I was back and fourth what to do. What does this mean? What if we moved away from religion but still believed. . It would take me about a year to admit to myself that I no longer believed.

I grew up in the church and had a strong faith for many years. I was that asshole in school. I was actually studying to be a missionary. I held the belief that all religions were the same, just culturally understood differently. It was through my study of religion and the actual history behind each religion that caused me to understand that I was indeed correct about all religions being the same, but not correct in believing their to be any greater truth to them. They are all only tools of political power and control.

Even as a child, I knew it was all bullshit. As soon as I heard the word "atheist", and understood what it meant, I knew I was one.

i find my experience different from most here, and i guess i should feel lucky. i was never a christian, i wasn't raised religiously within judaism, despite always being imbued with a strong sense of jewish identity, and when i realized that there were no gods, this was not traumatic. it never occurred to me to tell my parents about it. i wouldn't have been afraid to do so; it just never crossed my mind that they'd be interested. i didn't even know whether they believed in any gods, themselves! so i never had to pretend anything, nor would i have done so (i'm stubborn!) and yet i understand that others have gone through... um... hell, i guess! (we really are stuck in our language, aren't we?)

g

I was raised in a Methodist household (my Aunt and Uncle). As a way to try to "connect" with them, I went along with their insistance (my aunt's, really) of joining the church. I went to Sunday school, got confirmed as a church member, and said the words. When I was 16, I moved in with my father. He described himself as an Atheist, but was really anti-religion. When I went away to college, I finally shrugged off the "burden" of what I was indoctrinated in. Just about the only good thing my father ever did for me was to allow me the ability to actually think that i could live my life on my own terms, as opposed to the terms set forth by someone else.

I was never indoctrinated, but I lived in the Bible belt so I learned to say agnostic to avoid attention from "loving" Christians. After I got out of grade schools it was less a concern and eventually I was more comfortable admitting to being atheist. Now i am more OUT about it just so that THEY have to realize the decent guy working next to them is not what their pastors are saying.

First the doctrine was wrong according the own sacred texts, change for a more "text based" church.
Then I see that the leadership was not interested in the people, but only in showing the sucess cases.
The I saw that even success cases were people faking and others iluded.
Then I learned that in all religions this happens the same way.
Then I open my mind to historical/psycological views, and saw the the texts were not real/precise (and scientifically absurd).
By the end when moving out even the community part that is the only "nice" thing became irrelevant and I saw it could be done without religion.
So for lack of evidence and lack of utility... why bother?

I was brought up athiest. Meaning, our family didn’t go to church. Didn’t discuss it. We had Christmas presents and Easter baskets, but none of the nonsense. So I’ve always been fairly comfortable with it.

I was aware of Christianity of course, but I recall around the age of 8-9 hearing about other religions and that convinced me that all religions were probably bullshit.

I think once I realized that no one could provide evidence beyond look around you and see that did it for me. Also the only way to turn water into lemonade is to add lemons. To turn it into wine well start with grapes..

I agree with your point about comfort and lack of pretense. In fact, I am able to breathe deeply and freely now that my religious past is but a speck in my rear view mirror.

I was somewhat rebellious in my teens, and dared even to make light of my faith. For which I later felt guilty, and decided to take Pascal's wager, and doubled down on faith. It took me decades to find my way out of the labyrinth created by my religion, but the seed of my doubt, and the first of many subjects I would confront the so-called Creator with, is the Problem of Evil.